


Demolition Woman (Can I Be Your Man?)

by troubleinmind



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Series, god bless Griffin and his complete distain for the actual rules of DnD magic, weird insular academic communities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 18:03:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12710124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troubleinmind/pseuds/troubleinmind
Summary: Months before the light shows up at the IPRE, Barry Bluejeans meets the twins for the first time. Lup makes a definite impression.





	Demolition Woman (Can I Be Your Man?)

She is the brightest thing he has ever seen.

Years and indescribable distances from now, he will say that he first fell in love with her in a darker time, on a lonely and brutal planet in a moment of shattering vulnerability. This will be true when he says it, and at the time the softness between them will leave him breathless for months afterwards.

But if he’s being honest (and he does try to be honest. As honest as possible. He is a scientist and the truth is important to him), she has always left him breathless.

Everyone at the IPRE knows about the twins. It’s a gossipy place. Lab hours are long and late nights are common and the organization tends to hire the sort of people who live at work. It’s also a pretty small organization considering their research. So everyone knows everyone and everyone is in everyone else’s business all the time. New people always draw attention.

Still Barry has definitely heard more talk about these twins than new blood usually attracts. It’s a remarkable organization, full of remarkable people. Everyone there was at some point the luminous light in an emptier sky. The people of the IPRE take their work seriously, and themselves somewhat less so. It’s not a place prone to superlatives.

He’s really not sure what to make of what he hears about the twins in this context. If the lab gossip is to be believed, they are the most talented casters anyone who’s seen them has ever seen. They have apparently taken their lab by storm, started new projects with terrifying and fascinating implications. They are pushing the the boundaries of reality faster and more effectively than even their labmates can keep up with.

He’s heard they are closer than close, never one seen without the other. That they are rock star charismatic, but that the girl (Lup? He isn’t sure. They both have such odd names) is the more friendly of the two. That they have a thousand in-jokes, are prone to yelling, are caught up in their work with an adrenaline junkie enthusiasm.

He’s heard they are both devastatingly hot.

Given all this, it’s a little surprising that he hasn’t seen any sign of them anywhere on the IPRE campus, but then that’s probably his own fault. He’s been headfirst into his own research for the last few weeks and has barely left his lab. They could have blown up an IPRE building and it’s possible he wouldn’t have noticed, so long as it didn’t disturb his samples.

Or so he thought.

It turns out when the entire west campus skyspace is suddenly engulfed in flames it is very noticeable. That’s where they launch spaceships from. It’s huge. The earth shakes. Barry, who has been forcibly ejected from his lab by Gabi, seriously considers whether her predictions were accurate and he has, in fact, begun to hallucinate. Conjured fireballs should not be that big. That should not be possible.

Then the fire dies away and in it’s place stands an elf. “Fuckin Sweet!” shouts the elf.

Barry feels his entire world reordered.

She is laughing. It's a high, sharp, gleeful cackle that fills her body with movement. Her head is thrown back, and the fall of her hair cascades over her shoulders in devastating glamorous waves, and how does ANYONE working with fire keep hair like that? For that matter, how does anyone stand in the midst of that inferno and survive, much less come out laughing?

“Hell yeah Lulu!!” A second elf in a fairly ridiculous hat has appeared in a second floor window, hanging most of his body out to give her a thumbs up. She sweeps into a grand bow, arms outstretched.

“Come down bro! I want to try shaping around multiple targets.”

The second elf disappears from the window, but reappears a moment later to launch himself towards the ground, floating down gently with what is probably a quickly cast featherfall. He moves to stand a fair distance from his sister and surely not. Surely she isn’t about to cast whatever impossible spell that is _again_ around both of them? The sort of power necessary to create even one of those is unthinkable for a single caster. The idea that she might have the slots for two of them in rapid succession is terrifying. Barry thinks vaguely of running for preemptive medical help in case one of them dies, but he can’t seem to move his feet.

“Hey you! Nerd boy!” They have apparently noticed him staring. He starts, and realizes that she is beckoning him into the courtyard. Her brother is glaring. His previously frozen legs show much greater interest in following her instructions than his own, and he walks towards them. He’s still a good thirty feet away when she waves her hand again. “Stop there. That’s perfect! This is a good distribution.” She grins, and he’s not sure he’s ever been so aware of another person’s teeth.

He finds his voice as she begins to raise her hands. “Wait! What are you doing?” God. Has he ever sounded more like a nerd than this moment?

She quirks an eyebrow. “I’m gonna blow your mind little man.”

He draws a breath. “Are you sure it’s safe?” He can feel the words on his tongue, he knows he’s said them, but for all he can hear he might as well have imagined them. When he had thought of fire before he had not thought of it as loud, but the roar fills his ears and shakes his bones. Or perhaps that’s the ground under him, vibrating once again with the force of the blast. He’s sure he’s dying. And then he realizes he is not. He can see the air shimmering in front of him, blistering hot, but the heat on his skin is a gentle caress. The force of the spell surrounds him, enfolds him, and brushes past him whisper soft. And then it’s gone. It’s gone and they are three, standing at a distance and cackling like so many hyenas. He’s laughing hysterically, gasping for breath, and staring at the two elves who are walking towards him now.

“You!” He reaches towards her, thinks better of it, and leans his hands on his knees, still trying and mostly failing to catch his breath. “You are _crazy_. What _was_ that? That’s _impossible. Who are you?_ ” 

“Who are _you_ thug?” asks her brother. Both of them are standing over him now, still grinning, so he straightens up.

“I'm Barry. I'm in biology. I do life cycle stuff. Mostly science but I do a bit of the arcane stuff too. I've never seen anything like what you can do though. How do you manage that?”

“I'm brilliant, natch.” She smiles at him and he finds himself nodding. It's absurd, the opposite of an explanation, but standing with her in the aftermath of her impossible spell he finds himself accepting it. “I'm Lup, by the way. This is my idiot brother Taako. So if you're in life cycles, does that mean you do creepy necromancy stuff? Got an army of corpses waiting somewhere?”

He's laughing. “No not really. I mean, I'm familiar with the principles of course, but I'm really much more interested in the natural, unenhanced processes of life and death. The arcane stuff is more for the living side of things. I'm running long-term antigravity simulations on tardigrades right now, seeing how it affects their lifespan.” 

“Sweet! So… anything dying right now? Or can you stay and help with this test? I really do need multiple targets to get this solid.”

He's nodding yes before she even finishes her question. He had planned on heading back soon, but the tardigrades will keep, and he needs to see more of what she's capable of. After all, even if it's not his field, it's not every day you get to see the laws of magic rewritten. 

It’s hours later when he finally heads back to his lab. His hair is a tousled, windswept mess, but his clothes are, shockingly, completely unsinged. He is also, he realizes suddenly, still alive and not surprised about it. He had spent most of the afternoon standing in an inferno of apocalyptic proportion, and after that first time it had never once occurred to him to wonder whether or not he would survive. He had put his life and his body entirely in Lup’s hands, again and again, without a second thought.

He knows he will do it again if she asks.

He finds himself humming over his samples all evening. When he finally sleeps, he dreams of fire.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Come chat with me here or on tumblr ([acesgroupchat](https://acesgroupchat.tumblr.com)) and we can cry together about this astounding podcast. (also on tumblr: [the completely off the top of my head, unedited semi-sequel that ShinyKipp asked for, in which the twins meet Merle and Magnus](https://acesgroupchat.tumblr.com/post/167469493397/hey-there-i-came-on-over-from-ao3-and-am-here-to))
> 
> Unbeta'd so if you find a typo let me know!
> 
> The title is from Def Leppard's Pour Some Sugar On Me. Is this song a Lup song? I think it is. I cannot for the life of me figure out why though.


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